Sources report that high-level Church officials are ‘extremely interested’ in having the petition added to the end of all celebrations of Sunday Mass.

VATICAN CITY — A concerted effort is under way in Rome and in dioceses around the world to have Pope Francis introduce a prayer for the poor, persecuted and oppressed at the end of every Sunday Mass.

The Register has learned that Church officials at the highest levels are “extremely interested” in having such a prayer inserted into all celebrations of Sunday Mass in accordance with the liturgical norms of the Missale Romanum 2002, the Missale Romanum 1962 and the liturgical customs and norms of the Eastern Churches.

The initiative is being taken not only because of the increasing persecution of Christians, but also in view of the many victims of abortion, human trafficking, poverty and oppression around the world.

It follows regular appeals from Pope Francis, who has urged people to speak out against persecution of Christians, whom he has likened to the Church’s first martyrs. Cardinal Timothy Dolan also made a point of bringing it to people’s attention. In his final speech as president of the U.S. bishops’ conference last November, he called on his brother bishops to champion the cause of people persecuted for their faith and to fight to protect religious freedom.

“Our Christian brothers and sisters [are] experiencing lethal persecution on a scale that defies belief,” he told the USCCB general assembly in Baltimore.

The issue was also raised by cardinals at the extraordinary consistory in February ahead of the October synod on the family.

The prayer would be reminiscent of the former Leonine prayer, which called for the conversion of Russia at the end of Mass. Like the Leonine prayer, established by Pope Leo XIII and which was removed in 1965, the new petition would also include the Prayer to St. Michael, said to be one of Pope Francis’ favorite prayers.

“Those who are practicing Catholics should be conscious of these unacceptable assaults on the God-given freedom and dignity of human persons,” said one source helping to lead the campaign and speaking on condition of anonymity. “You cannot have a Pollyanna view of the world. If nothing else, the faithful can at least express spiritual solidarity with those suffering persecution.” He stressed the proposal has “enormous support.”

Aid to the Church in Need

A number of leading Catholic non-governmental organizations are said to have also given the proposal their strong backing. Aid to the Church in Need, which already has a prayer for persecuted Christians, believes such an addition to the Mass would be both appropriate and timely.

“Coming face-to-face with victims of persecution, as we at ACN do during trips to countries marked by violence and oppression, what we almost always find is that they ask time and again [for us] to pray for them,” John Pontifex, ACN U.K.’s head of press and information, told the Register. “What could be more important an opportunity than praying for them at Mass?”

Pontifex noted that in countries such as Pakistan, Iraq, China, Sudan and Nigeria, many of the worst atrocities suffered by Christians have taken place while at Mass. “For that reason, it’s all the more fitting that we should remember them when we are at Mass ourselves,” he said.

Many Catholics in the West remain ignorant of increasing persecution against Christians. Lord David Alton of Liverpool, a pro-life British peer who has fought for the rights of Christians for many years, told an audience April 11 that the West’s failure to understand the “religious dimension to these terrible atrocities” and the “imperative of harnessing thoughtful and moderate religious leaders from all traditions” leads to a failure to “end the persecution and the unspeakable violence.”

"We in the West, who enjoy so many freedoms and liberties, ignore the systematic violent ideology of an Islamist 'Final Solution' directed at Christian minorities,” he said in a speech to ACN’s Lenten vigil in London.

At the same event, British Prime Minister David Cameron acknowledged that Christians “are now the most persecuted religion around the world” and said, “We should stand up against persecution of Christians and other faith groups wherever and whenever we can.”

‘The Most Persecuted Religion’

Pontifex, who believes the prayer would “work best if it were short and clearly worded,” said it “would be great if it acknowledged that Christianity is the most persecuted religion.” He also would like it to show “that our compassion and God’s mercy are sorely needed at a time when, in parts of the world, the faith is at risk of being effectively flushed out by oppression, bigotry and other forms of intolerance.”

Some argue that drawing attention to persecution runs the risk of making it worse and can fuel the fear of those who suffer from it most. Pontifex recognizes the risks, but he believes these concerns “are in themselves nothing compared to the value of praying for persecuted Christians at Mass.” He also believes the prayer should not be confined to victims of religious oppression, but that it would be part of “coming together as a family of faith,” because prayer is “the most natural expression of our compassion.”

Lela Gilbert, co-author of Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians and adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, said she found it “hard to think of anything objectionable” about a prayer for the persecuted Church at the end of every Sunday Mass.

“Not only does it raise awareness and combat ignorance — which is plentiful in places where the media is disinterested in issues related to Christianity — but it also lifts our struggling brothers and sisters before the Lord and invokes his power and grace and comfort into their lives,” she said.

Adoration, Fasting and Almsgiving

A separate proposal being forwarded to the Holy Father also suggests adoration before the Blessed Sacrament on Fridays for the intentions of the poor, oppressed and persecuted. It further aims to introduce the other two spiritual weapons: fasting and almsgiving.

The Pope, campaigners propose, should bring back abstinence from meat on Fridays, as the bishops of England and Wales did a few years ago. They would also like the Holy Father to call the Church to a renewed practice of charity and almsgiving in the face of these many evils, all of which are of great concern to the Pope.

In this context, Pontifex said the words of ACN’s founder, Father Werenfried van Straaten, are highly appropriate. “They are being tested in faith,” Father van Straaten once said. “We are being tested in love.”

Following is a draft text of prayer being proposed for the poor, persecuted and oppressed, which would be followed by the Prayer to St. Michael.

Almighty, ever-living God,

Your incarnate Son taught us that those who suffer for your name are blessed.

Give love for their neighbor to all people of goodwill.

Inspire rulers and governments to work tirelessly for peace, justice and freedom for all.

Give us a spirit of solidarity and of service for those who suffer and who are poor, that we may bring to them that love your Son made manifest by his suffering and death on the cross.

Help us to recognize the face of the Evil One in our day and give us the strength and means to confront his many works.

Comments

Did Jesus not declare that the person judging will be judged (v. 1) because judging assumes a divine prerogative; final judgement belongs to God alone, and those who seek to judge others now will answer then for usurping God’s position? (Matthew 7:1-6 see also 6:12-15).

Thus the charitable thing for Christians to do is to avoid labelling the PERCEIVED actions of anyone as acts of grave depravity or that of being intrinsically disordered.

Jesus never condemned anyone to an eternal death. Rather he said: “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. - Matthew 5:44
Pray that you may find the enemy within – the place were all conflict begins.

Pray that you may find the enemy within – the place were all conflict begins.

Posted by MR on Friday, Apr 25, 2014 8:54 PM (EDT):

When you see someone running on a road which you know ends in a precipice, the charitable thing to do would be to warn them that the road they are on will lead them to death. That is the Christian thing to do, while continuing to pray for them.

Of course, Jesus was crucified precisely because the Pharisees and the leaders did not want to listen to him when he warned them that the road they were on would lead them to eternal death.

Posted by bmerciful on Friday, Apr 25, 2014 1:58 PM (EDT):

Why do some remain so focussed on the sins of a homosexual without first recognizing the log in their own eye? Do we really think this is what Christians are called to do?

How can anyone know for sure if someone or a group is guilty of the sins of sodomy, masturbation, anal sex, etc.? Should this be the primary role of Christians?

The purpose of this response is to show how selective we can be when we are challenged to become more loving and accepting of others. This was the universal call of Jesus and the reason why he was finally crucified.

Any campaign to introduce prayer for those Christians who are being persecuted must not be limited to only those we approve? What would be the point?

Posted by Tom in AZ on Thursday, Apr 24, 2014 2:26 PM (EDT):

@bmerciful: Show me one person who said anything about whether any “perceived” sin is greater than any other sin. Please restrict your responses to what is actually posted, rather than replying to your hallucinations. ‘Kay?
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As for “sodomy, masturbation, and anal sex” not being restricted to homosexuals: well, they’re always sinful for heterosexuals, so why are you pretending that the mere fact of a homosexual orientation (if there is such a thing, which there may well not be) magically makes them not sinful anymore? Even if “90%” of Catholic women had used artificial contraception (and that stat’s been blasted to hell and back by everyone that looks into it), that is immaterial to what is or is not morally correct, and to what the Church teaches. Something like 60% of the bishops apostasized during the Arian controversy; does that affect the question of the divinity of Christ?
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It’s immaterial whether the Catechism is precise or imprecise; the Catechism is necessarily brief in its phrasing. The 2000-year tradition of the Church is very precise indeed.
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And nobody said anything about how they FEEL—some people, perhaps unlike yourself, use communication as something other than mere emotive purging. People have been talking about reason and ethics, not their feelings. Your remarks about “feelings of unnecessary guilt and shame” are utterly scurrilous; you can’t win the argument, so you attempt amateur psychoanalysis of the sublimated neuroses that led to the opposition. That has a name, in that 2000-year-old philosophical tradition you obviously know nothing about; it’s called “argumentum ad hominem”. It is a logical fallacy.
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Do you have any arguments based on reason, rather than the chemicals in the endocrine system of an ape? Do you have any assertions about facts, rather than disingenuously oblique accusations and self-righteous posturing?

Posted by bmerciful on Thursday, Apr 24, 2014 11:58 AM (EDT):

Why do so many here feel that a perceived sin committed by others is greater than theirs?

Why are so many here fixated on matters of sex? Sodomy, masturbation and or anal sex is not restricted to homosexuals anymore than it is to heterosexuals.

While the present Catechism talks about the so called ‘act’ as being of grave depravity it fails to denote the precise nature of the act. This has left it open to all kinds of perverse sexual interpretations. Most of which have been incorrectly described in great detail by many posters above. Hence they may have absorbed feelings of unnecessary guilt and shame.

The ‘act’ is more likely to refer to procreation than anything else. Since 90% of Catholic women have practised some form of contraception, other than that prescribed by the Church, readers may note that such acts are no different for heterosexuals than for homosexuals.

Why then condemn and persecute the homosexual? And more importantly why not pray for these persecuted Christians instead?

Posted by robert waligora on Thursday, Apr 24, 2014 7:12 AM (EDT):

bmerciful…I mentioned to you above..Sodomy is clearly condemned in Scripture, therefore God could not create you as a sodomite because it is clearly evil. It is you choice to choose the life you want to live, if you want to live your life to go to Heaven or to live your life in a way that gives you hell for eternity.

Posted by Tom in AZ on Wednesday, Apr 23, 2014 10:59 PM (EDT):

@bmerciful: You plainly have no comprehension of what does or does not mitigate guilt. Since the whole pro-gay argument hinges on the fact that their acts are consensual—are you going to deny that homosexuals are mentally-competent adults, now?—they are also free NOT to consent to them; therefore, they are morally responsible for such acts. That is the very DEFINITION of “moral responsibility”, which is essentially synonymous with “guilt”. An act is objectively right or wrong; a person’s RESPONSIBILITY can be mitigated by factors like ignorance, delusion, or emotional duress, but no external factor can make an act that is objectively wrong, right.
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As for “persecution”, again, “eating”, “breathing”, and “drinking” all have objective definitions and proper objects, to which alone they can be directed. I don’t feel the slightest compunction saying so. What makes you think you can shame me for pointing out the actual biological definition of “mating”, which also has an objective definition and a proper object? Reality doesn’t care about your feelings, and it is not “persecution” to say so.

Posted by Elizabeth D on Wednesday, Apr 23, 2014 10:06 PM (EDT):

“bmerciful” said “According to you homosexuality’s cause is STILL unknown. If so,why persist in persecuting those whose guilt is not proven?”

I was confused by this comment till I realized, bmerciful, that you are confused about what Catholics consider “guilty.” While sometimes the issue of same sex attraction arose from a clear cause (like psychosexual disturbance from being molested) it’s not clear what exactly was the cause. An initial homosexual thought or un-sought-for feeling (or any other errant sexual thought for instance about a neighbor’s spouse) cannot possibly be a sin, because sin involves the will. If you didn’t will that, refuse to keep thinking about the thought, and you don’t act on it, then you are not “guilty” of anything but may be suffering with much merit and virtue. Sexual thoughts arise unbidden in almost everyone from time to time, it seems to be a more or less universal experience. And when you don’t follow sexual thoughts that arise (but move on to think about something else), normally they begin to arise less (and less powerfully). Chaste people are attractive, vibrant people and their heart can be oriented all toward good, either in single life or married family life where they are sexual with their spouse and children come from the union. But if you started actively, willingly fantasizing about something that is wrong, like sexual behavior with someone you’re not married to, or someone of the same sex, that is where guilt begins to come in. It can be hard especially because sexual satisfaction can be so much like a drug. But we do have free will. We can learn to say “no” to sin. And saying no to the errant thoughts effectively prevents it moving onward to the point where sexual sin would be physically acted out. Willingly acting on same sex behavior is wrong, regardless of what the initial cause of the homosexual inclination was. In relation to the causes, I really have compassion for them, especially the case of some people I have met, as I mentioned, for whom the cause was actually someone horribly sinning against them when they were a child! It would be cruel to think that they were destined to keep acting out in their body the offenses wrought against them—no, they can be free of that. God wants to give grace for chastity, He wants to give it as a good gift, but each of us has to cooperate with it. Otherwise, surely it is impossible.

Posted by bmerciful on Wednesday, Apr 23, 2014 2:55 PM (EDT):

@Tom in Arizona

According to you homosexuality’s cause is STILL unknown. If so,why persist in persecuting those whose guilt is not proven?

Posted by Tom in AZ on Tuesday, Apr 22, 2014 1:53 PM (EDT):

@bmerciful (continued): 10. One hack, John Boswell, put forth the theory, and it’s been universally rejected by all serious historians. I believe he’s also the one who said medieval “spiritual brotherhood pacts” were gay marriages—which raises some disturbing questions about his relationship with any siblings he might have. Gonna quote some Flat Earth Society pamphlets next?
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11. Marriage is not a “reward for being heterosexual”, anymore than not starving is a “reward” for recognizing FOOD when you see it. There are people that are not sexually attracted to beings they can actually mate with; there are also people that have an urge to eat gravel. Saying that gravel is not food is not “declaring it off limits”; it’s recognizing a fact about animal metabolism.
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12. Poppycock. There is absolutely no “interpretation” possible. Homosexuality is forbidden by the Mosaic law and by all the Christian Fathers. It’s also forbidden by Socrates and Plato and Aristotle in Greece (Socrates famously refers to it as “the poisonous spider-bite”), by Buddha and all the Hindu sages in India, and by both Confucius and the Taoists in China. Here in the New World, the Nahuatl Indians saw it as blasphemy against the Duality of male and female.

Posted by Tom in AZ on Tuesday, Apr 22, 2014 1:47 PM (EDT):

@bmerciful:
1. Prove it. The data on that are not nearly as conclusive or simple as you apparently would like to believe. Also, psychopathy is not chosen; it’s largely genetic, possibly with a concomitant trauma-trigger. Alcoholism is almost entirely genetic. Pedophiles essentially ALWAYS get that way through being abused. Yet we expect all those people to not engage in the acts their conditions predispose them to.
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2. Homosexuality’s cause is STILL unknown, despite your pontifications above, but that doesn’t affect the morality of homosexual ACTS.
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3. Yes, but “adequate preparation”=“not be in a state of mortal sin”. Masturbation involving the digestive tracts of members of one’s own sex is as much a mortal sin as any other kind of masturbation.
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4. The actual clinical data suggest otherwise. That an organization was cowed by Lysenkoists and engaged in public self-accusation just demonstrates we live under a Stalinist totalitarianism.
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5. That refers to the Judaic dietary law, not to natural law morality. You will find Socrates, Confucius, and Buddha saying that homosexuality is immoral, based solely on reason. Also, Paul specifically lists homosexuality as an abomination.
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6. Marriage can be defined as a kind of squid, too, but that doesn’t make that definition correct. Marriage is simply the form “mating” takes in a sapient species. You can no more redefine mating than you can redefine hunger, thirst, or breathing.
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7. That passage is even more irrelevant to your point than your quote from Acts. And people that fall in love with their siblings are also expected not to act on that love—despite the fact sibling marriage, unlike gay marriage, is actually found among human cultures.
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8. That Canon actually says “All persons are bound to seek the truth in those things which regard God and his Church and by virtue of divine law are bound by the obligation and possess the right of embracing and observing the truth which they have come to know.” It has to do with religious conversion, not morals.
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9. Vatican II didn’t change any teachings at all; “procreative and unitive” is centuries old. But the infertility of a real marriage is only accidental; were the organs healthy, they would be fertile. The healthiest colon in the world ain’t never gonna conceive.

Posted by bmerciful on Tuesday, Apr 22, 2014 12:48 PM (EDT):

12 Things Roman Catholics need to know about same-sex marriage.

1. Homosexuality is not an option. The condition is entirely due to a hormonal imbalance during first twelve weeks of pregnancy affecting these innocent individuals in greater or lesser degrees.
2. Prior to the issuance of the 1993 Catechism homosexuality was acknowledged as a condition for which its cause was unknown.
3. All Catholics regardless of race, age, nationality or sex and sexual orientation, state of life or social position have the right to receive all the sacraments for which they are adequately prepared (Canon 213, 843).
4. Gay ‘conversion therapy’ does not work. Exodus International, an organization whose mission for almost 40 years was to “help” gays Christians become straight, recently shut down its operation admitting that the therapy did not work. Exodus apologized for “being part of the very system of ignorance that perpetuated hurt”.
5. The Acts of the Apostles states that Christians have no right to declare unclean anything that God has made (Acts of the Apostles 10:15). To do so, in fact, is a sin.
6. Marriage can be defined as the unique and special form of committed friendship between sexually attracted persons. Marriage is a supreme human good involving exclusive, committed, enduring, generous, and faithful love, and this kind of love is not something that only heterosexuals can achieve.
7. The view that homosexual people are condemned to involuntary celibacy for life is as cruel as it is absurd. Jesus said of celibacy: “Let those accept it who can” (Matthew 19:12).
8. When there is a debate on a moral issue (in this case same-sex union), Roman Catholics are free and encouraged to inform and make up their own minds about Church teachings. (Canon 748.1)
9. Vatican II declared that marriage is not exclusively reserved for pro-creation but rather on one based on love. Not all heterosexual couples are capable of producing life, so why punish homosexuals? With regard to the transmission of life, ‘Parents themselves should ultimately make the judgment in the sight of God’ (GS 50).
10. The Catholic Church actually honoured same-sex marriage through Saints Serge and Bacchus whose marriage is preserved in a seventh century icon which shows Jesus as the official witness, or best man at their wedding.
11. We have no moral right to declare marriage off limits to persons whom God has made gay. We have not right to say that marriage, with all of its advantages and beauty, is a reward for being heterosexual.
12. Those who claim that the Bible condemns same-sex activities must read these passages in their proper context and with the understanding that there are many more passages that cannot be interpreted without the knowledge and understanding we have reached today.

The Roman Catholic Church’s claim that homo-sexual couples and same-sex marriages do not constitute Traditional families and cannot therefore be accepted into the Church is clearly wrong and contradicts the true meaning of Christianity.

Posted by Tom in AZ on Monday, Apr 21, 2014 12:14 PM (EDT):

It is kinda weird we didn’t have this before, isn’t it? I mean, Protestant England and the Ottoman Empire existed, and their persecutions were as bad as any in the world now. Did we ever have prayers for the persecuted Irish or Croats (or, to expand beyond just the Latin Church, the Orthodox under Ottoman domination)?

Posted by Tom in AZ on Monday, Apr 21, 2014 9:16 AM (EDT):

@Peter Beacham: There is no such “mountain” of evidence about hormone spikes, protein spikes, or genetics; they have never even come close to finding a “gay gene”, despite decades of searching, and there has not been ANY remotely systematic investigation of the role of in-utero hormones or protein in future homosexuality (because to systematically investigate it, you’d need to experiment on large numbers of pregnant women).
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Besides…it is PROVEN that psychopathy is at least partly genetic. So is “intermittent explosive disorder”. So is alcoholism. So are several other mental disorders that predispose people to acts UNIVERSALLY considered “objectively disordered”. By your logic, we have to say that none of the things done by people with those disorders is wrong, or else we are claiming that God makes mistakes.

Posted by john bremsteller on Sunday, Apr 20, 2014 1:45 PM (EDT):

Pakistan, Iraq, China, Sudan and Nigeria. don’t forget El Salvador

Posted by Robert on Sunday, Apr 20, 2014 11:04 AM (EDT):

Years ago, we used to recite the Prayer to St Michael, but that was stopped because I’m sure many wanted to finish up and leave the church after mass.
What better way to pray for the persecuted, poor, our evil political policies and leaders is there than this prayer…...crushing Satan!!

Posted by robert waligora on Sunday, Apr 20, 2014 7:15 AM (EDT):

Peter Beacham…the Catholic Church doesn’t persecute ANYBODY!..if you do feel persecuted, its because of sin and a sinful lifestyle. And by the way there IS NO gay gene, for God does not create evil!

Posted by Riverboat on Sunday, Apr 20, 2014 1:07 AM (EDT):

It’s already part of the Divine Liturgy in the Eastern churches. Maybe we could borrow a page from them.

Posted by Elizabeth D on Saturday, Apr 19, 2014 5:00 PM (EDT):

I like the idea; the proposed prayer itself, while I can agree with it wholeheartedly, is a bit bland. Some doctrinally solid petition for Christian unity should also be considered in such a prayer. I think having all forms of the Mass/Divine Liturgy use the same prayer is kind of a nice idea. However I feel certain many/most of those who currently are praying the Leonine Prayers would want something more explicitly praying “for the conversion of sinners, and for the liberty and exaltation of our Holy Mother the Church.”

Posted by Michael Henderson on Saturday, Apr 19, 2014 4:32 PM (EDT):

For the better part of a century we had a prayer for religious freedom at the end of Mass, but in the 1960s it was unaccountably decided that to pray for the exaltation and liberty of our holy Mother the Church was no longer worth an extra three minutes of Catholics’ Sunday.

Now we are presented this composition, which may reflect the best of intentions, but which assaults the ear like something cooked up by the ICEL circa 1970. No doubt the progressive left and other attackers of religious freedom in the West would have us regard them as “work[ing] tirelessly for peace, justice and freedom for all”—just as they tried to during the 1960s when, with or without intent, they helped the Iron Curtain to reach its maximum circumference.

The practice, more vital today than ever, of the corporal works of mercy cannot be outsourced to the monolithic State either in the name of charity or to satisfy a twisted notion of “solidarity.” That we would seriously consider entreating Almighty God to bless our efforts to do just that is gravely problematic.

Posted by Peter Beacham on Saturday, Apr 19, 2014 2:57 PM (EDT):

In the list of persecuted Christians, will the Pope be including members of the LGBT community who continue to suffer persecution, life threatening at times, from the overt actions of the Catholic Church? Is the Pope and the rest of the Catholic Church unmindful of the mountain of evidence that shows the homosexuality spectrum to be caused by genetics, hormone spikes during pregnancy or protein spikes during pregnancy? Homosexuality is neither an “objective disorder” as the Church likes to claim, nor are expressions of love by members of homosexual spectrum a “moral disorder”. Perhaps the Pope thinks that God makes mistakes?

Posted by Felix Rivera on Saturday, Apr 19, 2014 2:50 PM (EDT):

Trust me when I tell you that God is fully aware of the persecution His Church is encountering not only around the world but especially in the Holy Land. He became flesh and lived among its inhabitants to give them a New and Everlasting Covenant to strengthen their ways only to be rejected and crucified by them. Of course we must continue to pray; but God also expect us to defend our faith by identifying and speaking clearly against the forces of evil that are decimating Christianity in the Holy Land. Why can’t we see the reality of the persecution of Christians in the Holy Land to the extent that we avoid identifying the aggressors and worse yet we cover up for them? How can we expect Christianity to flourish around the world if it will eventually cease to exist in the Holy Land?

Posted by Peter on Saturday, Apr 19, 2014 1:17 PM (EDT):

1. What took so long?

2. If the Vatican does institute such a prayer for oppressed Christians, you can be sure it will be so mild as to be near meaningless least it offends the Muslims .... and Obama and the Democrat Party.

Mr. Pentin, you’ve no idea how thankful this news piece makes me. It’s way past time for something like this. I’m thankful for the work of ACN, & everyone should support this dedicated Church agency. Keep them & all members of the Persecuted Body of Christ in prayer always, as well as fasting & alms giving. Mr. Pentin, thank you for reporting this good news & please keep us readers updated on further developments.

Posted by Margaret in MI on Saturday, Apr 19, 2014 12:47 PM (EDT):

Some of us have long not understood why this added petition/prayer to our daily liturgies has taken so long? (EWTN the World Over, NCR and other news outlets have reported major escalation in killings/persecutions of Christians, especially in the Middle East, for about 3 long years now)

And then to read the best quote in the article was a source speaking on condition of anonymity ?! “Those who are practicing Catholics should be conscious of these unacceptable assaults on the God-given freedom and dignity of human persons, You cannot have a Pollyanna view of the world. If nothing else, the faithful can at least express spiritual solidarity with those suffering persecution.” But he stressed the proposal has “enormous support.” (?)

Hoping this prayer for our fellow Christians is added very, very soon.

Posted by bmerciful on Saturday, Apr 19, 2014 12:45 PM (EDT):

When did we stop praying for anyone persecuted person in this world?

Posted by Sr. Dorcee Clarey on Saturday, Apr 19, 2014 12:03 PM (EDT):

This is definitely inspired by the Holy Spirit. May it come about quickly. We must pray for them continually. Their blood is the seed of the Church.

Posted by MR on Saturday, Apr 19, 2014 11:39 AM (EDT):

Yes indeed, the awareness of those persecuted Christians is absolutely crucial. The atrocities being committed by Islam followers in Syria, Egypt, and several places in Africa, the middle East and by communist China are gruesome and the world needs to become aware of it.

For those of us who cannot be there to help physically, prayer is the most important thing we can do to be in solidarity with our suffering brethren.

Lord hear our prayer, let our cry come to you!

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